I am making a Robot Lawnmower and it is very basic. I am using an UNO with the arduino Motor Shield. This is my first attempt at a sketch and using someone elses sketch as a guide (he used a different motor shield) along with a motor shield tutorial I found online, I came up with this.

Basically all I need it to do is go forward at full speed and if it bumps into something, back up, randomly turn and go forward again. I am using two micro switches for the bumpers. I have a 12VDC acid battery from an APC powering the Motor shield/motors, and a rechargable 9.6V (9v sized) battery powering the board. The Vin Connect pin I removed per suggestion from the Main site. The wiring goes from the battery, splits off to the blade motor and goes to the microswitches, then out of the switch to the motor shield, the other terminal on the micro switch will go to A2 and A3 but I haven't tried them connected yet. The ground connects to the ground for the blade motor, which connects to the battery.

Which worked for him ( I saw a video of it working) but as I didn't have IR sensors I removed that part, and because he used a different motor shield the pins were different. So back to the drawing board, time to learn some coding...

Arduinos are not the best at plug-and-play, too much variation in board types and shields. They are much better when one bites the bullet and learns the programming language and make your own great sketches and projects.

yeah, I was just hoping, since it was a simple program, that I would be able to quickly get it going without having to get too heavily into learning C++, since right now I am also studying for my CCNA and trying to find a new job as a net admin. Learning a programming language at this point in time doesn't seem conducive. Just out of curiosity though, could you guys point me in the general direction of where I went wrong? I made one or two modifications that I think might help but I don't really know. This is just from looking at a couple on the in IDE and on the site examples.

You mention providing power to a blade, are you really planning that? (or simulated)

I don't see anything in the program that suggests turning on and off the blade mower.

(Anyway, I'd recommend simulated )

Cheers,John

the blade motor is not controlled by the board, it just comes on when I flip the switch.

edit: I actually first tried this bot with a homemade circuit using relays, I was able to get it to go forward, bump, back up, but I couldn't get it to turn (could figure out the caps). So I wanted to switch it to an Arduino.